Orange Pop: Young the Giant grows up

It's been a whirlwind couple of years for Irvine-based indie rock group Young the Giant.

Initially known as the Jakes, the quintet began performing around Orange County in 2004 -- when all of its members were still in high school. Four years and a few member changes later, the band began to gain momentum with its Shake My Hand EP, which included a catchy track (“Cough Syrup”) that made the Jakes regulars on KROQ's Locals Only program.

Later that year the Jakes entered a contest and beat out 1,500 other artists to land a gig opening for Kings of Leon at a special show at House of Blues in Chicago in January 2009. Since then, the band, which changed its name to Young the Giant last year, has been on a dead run toward success. The band has now completed seven national tours, played the annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, signed with Roadrunner Records and released its self-titled full-length debut last October.

“It's something that we've always wanted and wished for, especially since it's that venue,” vocalist Sameer Gadhia (center) said during a recent phone interview from London while the band was busy touring overseas in support of the European release of its album last week. “We've all seen so many amazing shows there. We just feel so lucky, and more than anything we feel some level of success -- we've been working so hard for this that we're happy we're seeing some results, especially back home.”

Gadhia -- with guitarists Jacob Tilley and Eric Cannata, bassist Payam Doostzadeh and drummer Francois Comtois -- return to the U.S. this week for the annual Sasquatch! Music Festival in George, Wash. The band is also slated to perform in August at Lollapalooza in Chicago and head out to Australia and Indonesia for even more festivals this summer.

“I never thought it would be this insane or this hard,” Gadhia says. “A lot of people don't realize how tough it is to be on the road all of the time. We've been on the road nonstop for a little over a year right now and it takes a lot out of us. But we're grateful, and every day we're striving for something. We're all trying to reach something that we're all not quite sure of yet ... but we're after something big.”

Young the Giant lived in a house together in Newport Beach for seven months while writing its latest album, then moved soon after to an L.A. apartment while recording at Sunset Sound and King Size Studios with producer Joe Chiccarelli, known for his work with the White Stripes, the Raconteurs and My Morning Jacket.

But since the album's release, Gadhia says the band has basically been homeless. “Essentially I live in a different hotel room every night,” he jokes. “When we do go back home we stay at our parents' places in Irvine. It's still home for us in a lot of ways, but now, coming back, it's more like a vacation, like coming back home after a semester of school or something, since we're rarely home.”

It seemed an unlikely fit when Young the Giant announced it had signed with Roadrunner, a label predominately focused on heavy metal and hard rock -- it's currently home to Korn, Dream Theater, Slipknot, Megadeth, Meat Loaf, Rob Zombie and Nickelback. Gadhia says the band was 100 percent confident in signing even though its indie-rock sound, peppered with dance flair, didn't at all fit the roster.

“More than anything they were very passionate about what we were doing and we could see that in them,” he says. “Everyone was like a big family and wanted to take care of us, and they had a goal and vision that was in line with ours. It was also that everyone, on either side, wanted to try something new. That was the biggest thing: We wanted to break from the regular mold of branding and how people perceive labels.”

As the band members grew out of their teenage years (ages now range from 20 to 22) and developed a more mature sound, they needed to free themselves from a moniker they had hastily chosen in high school. Various names were kicked around -- Jungle Youth and the Gold Russians were among the front-runners for a while before they fell in love with Young the Giant.

“It was very tough picking a new name,” Gadhia says, “because we finally had an idea of what we stood for and what we wanted to be, and we wanted to connect that somehow with the name, but at the same time keep them independent. We spent a good three months thinking of names every day, and one day Young the Giant popped up. We realized that we didn't want to take it too seriously -- that's the real thing behind the name. It just stuck. For some reason it has just felt like home since that day.”

Gadhia won't be seeing much of home in his future -- there's only a two-week break from touring ahead, in July. But the constancy is doing them a world of good: the singer says they feel more comfortable and seasoned than the band did on its first national outing nearly two years ago with Minus the Bear.

“When that started I think people did treat us like the babies. (Minus the Bear) treated us like their little brothers because we were so unsure of what was going to happen on our first tour.

"But now that we have more experience under our belts, it's a little different. People think we're older than we are now, probably because of our beards. Sometimes when you're on the road, I guess you age a lot faster. It does take a lot of out you. I think we're starting to look a little older than we actually are.”

Young the Giant appear June 4 as part of KROQ's Weenie Roast 2011 at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, headlined by Linkin Park, Rise Against and the Strokes, and also featuring Bad Religion, Cage the Elephant, A Day to Remember, Face to Face, Neon Trees, the Airborne Toxic Event, Lykke Li and Foster the People. Tickets are sold out.

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